Mobile communication devices, such as cellular telephones and PDAs, have become an important part of everyday life. Portable devices are now being used not only for communication, but also to store many forms of data generated or downloaded during their use, including personal information such as calendar appointments, emails, pictures, video clips, and sound clips.
Often a user will connect his or her portable device to a larger device having more memory or computing capability, in order to transfer data between the two devices, whether for data backup purposes or for example, to update a calendar, phonebook, text messages sent and received, music and other media downloaded, as well as received and placed call records. For example, the larger device could be in the form of a home media set-top box, a personal computer, a wide area network server, or an internet server. The mobile device may be connected with the larger device via for example a USB cable, a WiFi home network or hotspot, or a Bluetooth wireless connection.
Data transfer between the mobile communication device and another device typically requires that the mobile device be powered, for example from its battery or from a wall outlet. With the large amounts of data that can be stored on today's portable devices, the time for a data transfer can be longer than the time available on the device's battery. Alternatively, the device can be connected for data transfer while it is being charged, but one or more manual steps must be taken by a user after the portable device is connected to the other device, in order to initiate the transfer of data between the two devices during charging.
The manual steps a user must take to initiate data transfer between a mobile device and another device are cumbersome and time consuming. Initiating data transfer becomes even more problematic when a mobile device contains multiple mechanisms for connecting with another device, such as both a wired connection like a USB connection, and one or more wireless connectivity mechanisms like WiFi and Bluetooth. Each type of wireless connectivity must be set up and configured. Thus a more convenient solution for portable devices to the problem of data transfer may be desirable.